Protect entitlements over enablements

Published: Friday, March 15, 2013 at 08:00 AM.

By DAVE SUTTON

PANAMA CITY BEACH After four years in the U.S. Marine Corps, I got my first wage-paying job in 1961 at a wholesale electrical store in Utica, N.Y. The job paid a minimum wage of $1.50 an hour. I was expected to work 50 hours a week. I received my first paycheck and noted deductions for federal and state taxes, but what was this “FICA”?

My employer told me that was a requirement by the federal government for my Social Security retirement plan. As long as I worked for wages I would have this money deducted from my pay and the federal government would put this money in a special interest-bearing fund. At age 65, I would receive a nice pension check each month for the rest of my life.

I, along with millions of other wage earners, believed this in good faith. As I moved to better-paying jobs through the years, I paid the maximum annual amount into this fund for 48 years until 2010, when I finally retired.

At about the time I started working, President Lyndon Johnson, inheriting a very messy war in Vietnam, decided to put some positive shine on his presidential legacy by starting a “Great Society” This program would end poverty. He would take money from Social Security because there was more money in the fund then would ever be needed.

Needless to say, thereafter any time another federal social program was implemented or enhanced, that same fund was tapped. Although Congress has the legal right to change the Social Security program, it also has the moral obligation to ensure the fund remains solvent. Disregarding this obligation has driven it to where it is today.

The truth finally came out under scrutiny — there is no special fund. It is just earmarked money in the general fund.

PANAMA CITY BEACH
After four years in the U.S. Marine Corps, I got my first wage-paying job in 1961 at a wholesale electrical store in Utica, N.Y. The job paid a minimum wage of $1.50 an hour. I was expected to work 50 hours a week. I received my first paycheck and noted deductions for federal and state taxes, but what was this “FICA”?

My employer told me that was a requirement by the federal government for my Social Security retirement plan. As long as I worked for wages I would have this money deducted from my pay and the federal government would put this money in a special interest-bearing fund. At age 65, I would receive a nice pension check each month for the rest of my life.

I, along with millions of other wage earners, believed this in good faith. As I moved to better-paying jobs through the years, I paid the maximum annual amount into this fund for 48 years until 2010, when I finally retired.

At about the time I started working, President Lyndon Johnson, inheriting a very messy war in Vietnam, decided to put some positive shine on his presidential legacy by starting a “Great Society” This program would end poverty. He would take money from Social Security because there was more money in the fund then would ever be needed.

Needless to say, thereafter any time another federal social program was implemented or enhanced, that same fund was tapped. Although Congress has the legal right to change the Social Security program, it also has the moral obligation to ensure the fund remains solvent. Disregarding this obligation has driven it to where it is today.

The truth finally came out under scrutiny — there is no special fund. It is just earmarked money in the general fund.

The federal government has spent itself into a hole so deep it will never get out. Any time a politician talks about saving money, the first thing out of his mouth is to cut entitlements. Under entitlements, they list Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and food stamps. They never mention the elephant in the room, which is welfare, or “social mobility” as it is now called.

First, we need to define entitlement. Entitlement is something you earn. Social Security and Medicare are earned through working for a living and putting money aside. Medicaid, welfare and food stamps are enablement. There is no way to group enablement with entitlement other than total narcissism.
Fifty years ago, unemployment benefits, food stamps and like programs normally were six months in duration. They were only intended to help wage earners when they lost a job until they could find a new place of employment. Today’s benefits are of such duration and amount that it breeds apathy toward even looking for a new job.

I am incensed when I read editorials that call Social Security middle-class welfare, or some young pundit states he should not have to pay for my Social Security check. It is just one more reflection on how shallow thinking and out of touch our younger generations have become. These same pundits say there is just not enough money to continue the program without restructuring it in some form. They continue to ignore the fact that the money that I and millions of others paid into Social Security all our working lives has been reduced by other programs until the program can no longer sustain itself. Is this my fault? I think not.

The second thing to kick in the teeth of older Americans is the nonexistent interest on our savings accounts. Those of us who worked all our productive years and put money aside to augment our Social Security receive no return on this investment. Money market funds and certificates of deposit gain almost zero interest. Those of us who did without a lot of things just to put money aside now are punished for being thrifty.
The final insult is the requirement to pay income tax on our Social Security earnings if you have any other income such as a pension plan. Without a doubt this is double taxation, which is illegal. We have already paid federal and state taxes when we were paying into these FICA requirements during our working years.

What I would like to see is an accounting of the amount taken from the Social Security fund and used for other than actual Social Security and Medicare payments. Then I would like to see the federal government admit it has caused the crisis by using this money to cover too many social programs and come up with a plan to replace these monies.

I know this is as likely to happen as term limits on congressmen, but I can dream, can’t I?